


in all the mysterious ways

by kuro49



Series: 200 subs promptathon of 2020 [9]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: BruJay Week 2020, Bruce Wayne is Batman but brand new at it, Getting Together, Jason Todd is Father Todd, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:27:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22928707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro49/pseuds/kuro49
Summary: Father Todd saves a dying man. Watch if he'll ever make that mistake again.
Relationships: Jason Todd/Bruce Wayne
Series: 200 subs promptathon of 2020 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1622572
Comments: 4
Kudos: 135
Collections: BruJay Week 2020





	in all the mysterious ways

**Author's Note:**

> written for recovery prompt of brujay week day 5 and also for anon who requested for father todd + bruce who is obsessed with protecting him even though jason makes it clear he doesn’t need help. 
> 
> fingers crossed that i'll be able to get 2 more entries done for brujay week :DD

Father Todd has nearly forgotten how the smell of fresh blood clings. The stink of it is sour and pungent and sharp like a knife.

"I'm not a doctor." He tells the man lying bleeding in the alley behind his church. And that's just the thing, a kicker really. He's not just a man, he's a _Bat_ in a cowl and a cape. _The_ Bat that's been swarming the worst parts of town, stringing up petty criminals and leaving them for the cops to pick up.

Father Todd isn't a man to take sides, he can't be. If he was younger and sweeter and hasn't seen the things he's seen or been through the kinds of things that ended up with him in a cassock and a clerical collar, he might even think Batman might be doing the city a favour.

But he isn't fucking _naive_.

"You're good enough, Father."

The voice is a funny one, rough like the grate of gravel and distorted with static until it’s nearly unrecognizable as anything remotely human.

"Hardly,” Jason scoffs as he steadies the man on his feet, blood smearing like a fresh coat of paint across his hands as he holds him up, “but I guess beggars can't be choosers."

It's so _warm_ the way the bat-man's blood drips from between his fingers.

Father Todd brings him inside of his church.

Sets the man down on the narrow bed after he lays down tarp. Stitches him and his three stab wounds up. Douses each one with antiseptic wash, and wraps it all up in clean gauze. A little tape that doesn't quite stick and Jason winds the Bat up in saran wrap to keep everything in place. It's a little do-it-yourself but there's not much to be done about that.

"You've got every right to give me up."

The man is solemn as Jason applies the last butterfly bandage to the long shallow cut made with a serrated blade across his torso. His voice is normal, edged in pain. And Jason almost wants the bat back if just so he didn't have to deal with something so human. He crosses the room to put away what is left of the first aid kit, telling the man shrouded in drama and a precarious placement of all the shadows in the room.

"You could just thank me, y'know."

Father Todd thinks on what he said outside in the alleyway with him taking the majority of the bat's weight, and has to let out a singular sound in amusement.

"I was wrong, you've really never had to beg once in your life. You're a billionaire who chooses to dress up as a fuckin' bat."

Bruce Wayne's eyes are blue, and he watches Jason come back to the end of the narrow bed. Here, where he keeps perfectly still on top of Jason's thin mattress, looking nothing like Gotham's golden boy when his hair is soaked in sweat, messy after a night stuffed inside a cowl, and his mouth is drawn tight into a thin flat line.

Jason stands back. "There's nothing in it for me to go against either one of your… you."

There is a pause while the man pulls himself to sit up, his breathing laboured even over the obnoxious noise of the tarp moving as he does. Jason doesn't shift to help, figures if the man insists on leaving even though those stitches might tear then that's none of his business. It's how he's maintained his corner of peace here for so long, Jason keeps his head down.

"Thank you, Father."

Bruce Wayne's eyes are really fucking blue.

Jason nods once in acknowledgement.

That was supposed to be the end of that.

But of course, it isn’t.

Father Todd remembers peace, like a distinct memory just out of reach. It is quiet and subdued and lovely. It isn't whatever _this_ is.

"You really need to get off my roof."

Batman is a shadow that takes shape and form as he drops down behind him without a sound. Jason bites back a sigh that wants to escape from between his teeth.

"Bruce."

"It's Batman."

" _Bruce_."

"There were men that wanted to rob you." Bruce tells him, a hard righteous edge to his Bat voice when the three men that tailed Jason all the way from the store have been everything but subtle. Jason is a priest, not an idiot. He's dealt with men like them for far longer than Bruce Wayne has ever tried to stop crime by beating it into submission.

And he tells him exactly that: "Let them."

Bruce turns his head to him in that way Jason has learned to mean the man is looking at him like he's being ridiculous. And Jason almost gives him the exact same expression in response if he isn't busy trying to find his keys.

"A little help?" Jason asks, and Bruce in his full Batman gear takes the grocery bags from him so he can unlock the backdoor to the church without dropping everything.

Father Todd saves a dying man. Watch if he'll ever make that mistake again.

When he turns back at the silence that follows the drop of his keys in the little bowl by the door, he finds the man in the shape of a bat standing still in the threshold of his doorway. It's a headache that builds from his temples to radiate down until he finds himself grinding down on his molars.

"You're not a vampire. You can come in without an invitation."

Jason cannot see Bruce's eyes when he's got the cowl up. And maybe, that's for the best.

"I don't want to intrude." Batman tells him, and it's that same gravel rough tone, scratching at the space that passes between them as he steps through the threshold while Jason crosses him to close the door behind them.

"A lil' late for that, don't you think?"

Bruce sets down the bags of groceries on to the kitchen table that sits on an uneven surface of the floor, wobbling a little as the weight settles. He pushes his cowl off over his head, grunts in question to what Jason means.

"Y'know, with you standing on my roof all night?"

Jason almost doesn't notice the way Bruce's shoulders tense up in answer.

No good deed goes unpunished.

Or so the saying goes.

Actions, Father Todd thinks, have consequences.

When he finds a man bleeding out behind the alley of his church, he brings him in, he stitches him up, and he doesn't let him die.

Maybe he should have. Because when he lets Bruce pin him against the wall, his first reaction isn't to drive the short blade kept inside of his boot into the spot between two connecting plates of Batman's armour. Well, he's already lost his way. Instead, his reaction is a small, soft sigh that parts his lips to the hard press of Bruce's tongue.

Jason has quite a few of his favourite literary prose coming to mind in description of just how Bruce is kissing him.

"You're okay with this?" Bruce asks him when he finally draws back.

The two of them panting for breath, pink in the face, red in the mouth, and blinking a glassy sheen from the bright blue of their eyes.

Bruce's gentleness starts and ends at the kind of behaviours that really should raise far more red flags than they do. Because they are that of a stalker (a protector). A bit of maniacal obsession when he is imprinting on the first person to show him any kindness (human decency really, it _was_ a great deal of blood after all).

Bruce Wayne is not a stray (even if he acts like one), and Jason Todd is not a collector of strays.

"Probably not but I already kissed you back." Jason lives a life in devotion. "There's no such thing as taking back a sin."

"Confessional?" Bruce asks as he goes down on his knees, pushing the hem of Jason's cassock up to his hips.

Jason inhales sharply at the cool air that hits him when Bruce pulls him free, cock already hard with barely a kiss. He tells him, like any of it still matters when he's already strayed this far from the path. "No one else here to forgive me for mine."

"I do." Bruce tells him, looking up at him with those eyes. And he is painfully earnest in his conviction, his belief in the good that is Jason Peter Todd.

Jason breathes out, and he is shaky with it when Bruce's hands touch the bare skin of his hips, thumbs digging in against his pelvis to keep him pinned to the wall: "You don't count."

He doesn't know the half of it.

Especially not when Bruce wraps the heat of his mouth around the head of Jason's cock, sinking down and down and down until he hits the back of his throat, and Jason can feel him swallow.

God works in mysterious ways.

A tip of his head back, a shout, and Jason is seeing white.


End file.
